Mendel Birnbaum was born on October 30, 1915 in Lodz, Poland to Israel Jakub Birnbaum and Ruchla Cyter. Israel perished in the Lodz ghetto from a heart attack and Ruchla was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Mendel had five other siblings, three of whom died in the Holocaust. Early in World War II, Mendel was caught by the Germans and was forced to clean streets and work in German military facilities. He escaped from the labor unit via the train station in Kalisz, Poland and fled across the Bug River. He was caught by the Soviets in the spring of 1940 and returned to German control because of the Nazi-Soviet pact. He escaped again to Pinsk, Belarus with his brother Bernard, but Bernard returned, only to perish in Auschwitz in August 1944. One night while in Pinsk, Mendel was arrested. He was placed in a prison that held mostly Jews and later released and put to work cutting trees. The Soviet government granted him amnesty in July 1941, and he found work at a sugar factory and then as an electrician in Frunze (now Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). Towards the end of the war, he held several other jobs and also contracted and recovered from malaria and typhus. In 1946, he was repatriated to the Polish town of Szczecin. He lived there for 20 years working in the court system before moving to Germany in 1968.
The photographs depict Mendel Birnbaum's experiences before and after World War II in Szczecin, Poland. The images consist of informal group photographs of family and friends as well as images of people dining, riding motorcyles, and farming.
Mendel Birnbaum photograph collection
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
folder 1